


To Be Wrong Once More

by VendelynSilverhawk



Series: Inquisitor Yvain Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VendelynSilverhawk/pseuds/VendelynSilverhawk
Summary: Inquisitor Trevelyan has finally uncovered Solas' truth, but it isn't enough to stop him from escaping through the final eluvian.This story tracks the time between Solas escaping and the finally Trespasser monologue, mainly what happens to the Inquisitor's arm.





	To Be Wrong Once More

**Author's Note:**

> feat. my very first inquisitor, Yvain Trevelyan.

Only after Solas was gone and his eluvian dark did the giant mirror behind Yvain let her companions through. With a shout of alarm that was decidedly un-Vivienne-like the mage was at her side, healing magic thrumming from delicate fingers. Now that people were finally here Yvain let herself fall backwards into Cassandra’s arms, while Sera paced in front of her with wild eyes.

               “What is that?” she shouted, pointing to the black creeping through Yvain’s arms where once was glowing green. “What is that?!” Now to the giant, dark eluvian. She yanked one side of her short blonde hair. “What in the name of Andraste’s saggy tits is going on here?!”

               “Solas-” Yvain had to avoid biting her tongue in pain when Vivienne pressed down on her arm, letting out a quick yell before Cassandra offered her a leather glove to bite down on. Her arm felt like it was on fire, like the skin was splitting in two. The anchor was gone, but something else had taken its place. What had Solas done?

               “Where is Mr. My-Arlatha-thingy-is-better-than-yours?” Sera demanded, spinning around. She shot a few arrows at the dark eluvian, seemingly because she could, but they all broke against the glass. She stamped her foot on the ground, still pointedly not looking at Yvain.

               It was alright. Sera didn’t like magic, and she didn’t trust people, and now they’d been thrown into the middle of something brimming with all the secrets of the Fade, with a former companion in the middle of it. Betrayal of the highest order.

               “Gone,” Yvain grit out.

               “But this is his work, no doubt,” Vivienne said acidly, still examining Yvain’s arm with a touch that flickered between delicate and hard. Yvain glanced down at the limb and was almost sick- in the middle of her palm was a black spiral of dead skin that looked almost like stone, with veins snaking up between her skin where the anchor used to crackle and grow. It whirled above her elbow like an angry root, and hurt every time it was moved. When she tried to twitch her fingers she felt every muscle in her hand protest, coming into contact with the stone in her palm. A steady pool of blood was forming where the skin tore between the black lines.

               “He saved me,” Yvain said weakly. Cassandra’s brows lifted in shock.

               “Where is he, then? This does not look like a rescue on his part, Inquisitor,” the warrior spat. Sera nodded vehemently.

               “It’s- a long story. But right now we have bigger problems. The Exalted Council-”

               “Can _wait,_ darling,” Vivienne said. “You need more help than I can give, unfortunately. Healing has never been my expertise.”

               “Oh, she admits something not-pretty! That’s new,” Sera commented, but the jab was lacking in the face of the Inquisitor’s pain, the stone Qunari around them that no-one seemed to want to address, and Solas’ pointed absence. There were still so many questions, so much left unresolved.

               So for once, Vivienne didn’t even bite at Sera’s behavior. This fact alone seemed to aggravate the elf more than anything, who started viciously kicking the eluvian until there was a _crack_ and she rolled backwards, clutching her foot.

               “That stupid-egg-arse-biscuit-eating-arse!” she yelled. “He can’t just do that! Run away after pulling this- this shite!”

               In one swift move Cassandra lifted Yvain bridal style, and Vivienne settled her prone arm against her chest, brows knit at Yvain’s every wince of pain.

               “We will find him, Sera,” Cassandra called to the still-raging elf. “We must help the Inquisitor first.”

               “Yes. And our absence has no doubt been noticed from the Council chamber,” Vivienne remarked, and for the first time Yvain was aware of how late it was.

               Of course. The next set of meetings was supposed to happen mid-afternoon, but now neither the Inquisitor, nor Divine Justinia, would be showing up.

               “We must retrace our steps- come! Before the other eluvians close. Who knows what devilry Solas has been up to in his absence?” Vivienne quickly took charge, and for once neither Sera nor Cassandra put up a fuss.

               In the two years since they defeated Corypheus and Vivienne had become Divine Victoria, she and Yvain hadn’t seen much of each other, but when circumstance forced them together they realized that the borderline animosity that had plagued them in the beginning was no longer there. They would never be best friends, but Yvain felt there was a mutual respect they had for each other, both as people who had gone into battle together and trusted the other to watch their back, and as two of the most powerful figures in Thedas, responsible for working together in order to keep the peace.

               As a consequence, she was surprised by how grateful she was that Vivienne, of all people, was at her side now.

               “Solas will pay for this,” Cassandra said.

               Then they stepped through the eluvian, and the world spun away.

               When it returned they were not in the clearing where they had fought the monstrous saarebas, but the makeshift Inquisition war room set up in the Winter Palace catacombs. Cassandra spun, and Yvain empathized with Sera’s outrage at having been “Magic-tricked! If you don’t know where they’re taking you, what’re they good for? _I! Hate! Magic! And! Stupid! Dusty! Elves!”_

               “ _Sera_.” Vivienne’s voice cracked like a whip around the chamber, pausing stunned guards, attendants, and the short blonde elf who was in the process of smashing her longbow into one of the brick walls. “Now. Is not. The time.”

               Sera lowered the bow. Stuck out her tongue. Couldn’t stop the trembling in her lower lip that Yvain knew, absolutely, was from fear.

               “You”- Vivienne pointed to a young clerk, who looked awestruck by the sight of the Divine in person, in her holy golden armor and headpiece- “Alert Ambassador Montilyet of what has transpired.”

               “Put me down,” Yvain whispered to Cassandra, while Vivienne ordered people left and right, and the war table was quickly cleared and a cloth draped over it.

               “Are you sure?”

               “No.” But she had Cassandra lower her anyway.

               She wanted to go straight to the council, where Josephine and Leliana and Cullen and most of the rest were, but when she tried to walk and her arm moved the pain was almost excruciating. With a pulled-in breath of pain her knees crumbled, and only Cassandra’s support kept her from collapsing onto the polished marble floor.

               “Someone fetch a healer!” Vivienne ordered. “One of ours! Where in Thedas is Dorian?”

               “Here!” the Tevene came flying down the hall, black and gold robes billowing about him, the crystal skull on his staff glittering in the torchlight. “What happened? I felt a surge of magic, almost like someone brought a piece of the Fade here- Inquisitor! Blessed Andraste, what happened to you?”

               When Cassandra helped her onto the cleared war table her arm swung loose, and in the light the black, stone-line roots growing through it past the elbow were painfully visible. Yvain summed a smile that probably looked more like a grimace.

               “It looks worse than it feels,” she said. Dorian was at her side in an instant, purple magic sparking around his fingertips, and he gave her a withering look that even Vivienne could have appreciated.

               “Of course you choose now to become a terrible liar. I feel so much better about the state of things,” he groused. After a few moments of humming around it from every angle, however, he shook his head and glanced at Vivienne. The First-Enchanter looked grim, but Yvain couldn’t tell what communication was happening between two mages who, notoriously, had never gotten along.

               Finally Dorian curled his hands into quick fists, extinguishing his magic. Vivienne seemed to teeter on the edge of stepping back, a barely-there hitch evident in her breathing, before she collected herself. The only indication that anything distressing at all had happened was the hint of regret in her sigh.

               “I was afraid of that.”

               “I’m afraid there’s nothing for it,” Dorian said, and Cassandra’s hand on Yvain’s shoulder tightened.

               “What are you-”

               Her hands felt warm. Something was drip-drip-dripping on the floor. Yvain tried to turn her head to look at Dorian and Vivienne, but all at once the room began to fade, as if the pain her arm had transmuted and traveled through the rest of her.

               Oh. The dripping warmth was blood. Her arm was bleeding, a steadily growing sleeve of red when she’d moved it too much and the stone roots were breaking free, literally tearing her flesh apart. It felt as though someone had doused her arm in oil and lit her on fire, but when she opened her mouth her throat was dry, no sound could be made, even though inside she was screaming.

               All of this happened in a heartbeat, and between the moment when Cassandra tried to ask what Dorian was talking about, and Dorian turned to answer, Yvain slumped back on the table.

               Everything went dark.

*

Consciousness came screaming back too quickly, painfully, completely, so much so that even the agony in her arm couldn’t stop Yvain from surging off the table as soon as the light hit her eyes. The white robes of healers wearing Circle emblems blending in to her companions, scattered around the war-room but barely registered when she heard the voice again.

               The one that woke her, and pulled her past the sting of Solas’ final “gift.”

               “ _Inquisitor_!” It had called her title first but now it was closer, felt warm like hands on her waist, like warm gold-flecked eyes, like-

               “Yvain!”

               “Cullen!” The name was a sigh past ragged lips, wobbly with tears and pain, broken in the middle by a pained gasp. With her good hand she clutched his tunic, even though she was ruining it with her bloody fingerprints, but both of them tore their eyes away from each other to look at her arm.

               She must have only been out for a few moments, but in that time the stone had begun to crack, leaving divots in her flesh, around which were messes of bloody flesh beginning to bruise, and the blood that leaked from every crack was no longer living red but a dark, oozing crimson that looked dead and smelled like foul magic.

               “Andraste’s Mercy,” Cullen breathed, pulling her focus back to him. Not caring who saw, Yvain pressed her head into his shoulder and began to cry. Every sob was deep, wracked with a physical pain worse than anything she could imagine, worse even than her wounds after the battle of Haven, what seemed like a lifetime ago, so bad she could barely breathe.

               “What happened?” Cullen demanded over her head. Distantly Yvain could hear Cassandra tell the story- abbreviated, only the necessary parts, and she had to stop once Yvain went through the final eluvian. None of them knew what she did- that Solas was Fen’Harel, that their whole world was in danger again, this time threatened by a once-trusted friend, and that their organization was so corrupt that this entire Council only happened because everyone’s spies were tripping over each other right beneath the Inquisition’s nose.

               She lifted her head. “Cassandra, give me your glove.”

               The new Lord-Seeker knew exactly what was going on now, too, and handed Yvain one of her thick leather gloves, folded twice over. Cullen gripped Yvain’s shoulders.

               “It has to go, doesn’t it? There’s nothing you can do?” she turned to Dorian and Vivienne. When she was unconscious they had each seemed to have elfroot potions and liquid lyrium delivered, sitting on a small side-table with a mindful apprentice.

               “As Divine, I can technically invoke the blessing of Andraste upon you. Would that help, dear?” Vivienne asked, and Yvain couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled through her, muffled into Cullen’s jacket until she could properly breathe again.

               “Sarcasm from Divine Victoria. Someone mark the occasion for the histories,” she said. Dorian approached with another mage, wearing blue robes, his long black hair pulled back.

               “Inquisitor, this is Rhys. He’s a spirit-healer from the White Spire,” Dorian explained. The mage nodded his head deferentially.

               “The Inquisition saved my life, and that of a dear friend. I came to the Council at the request of Sister Leliana.” Yvain nodded for him to continue, not recognizing the name but sure that he was telling the truth- there were many little details, many lives moved and bargained, with names she couldn’t remember. “We examined your arm while you were unconscious- the kind of magic that did this… it’s unheard of, and powerful. Even if we don’t remove the arm, it won’t last much longer, and if it gets infected it could spread to the rest of your body,” the young mage explained, as Dorian’s face contorted with sympathy.

               “Even blood magic won’t take care of this, I’m afraid,” he joked. Cullen didn’t look amused, but Yvain appreciated it.

               She nodded. “Do what you have to do then.”

               “Now?!” Cullen gripped her shoulders, then moved to cup her cheek. She leaned into the touch without thinking, and let her eyes slip closed. She could almost forget where she was…

               Almost.

               “We need time, and somewhere safer to prepare for this. If there’s a risk-”

               She opened her eyes. “I’ll take that risk. The Exalted Council is meeting as we speak, about the future of the Inquisition, with neither the Inquisitor nor the Divine present. We can’t let them know what happened or look weak. Especially since they seem to have decided we aren’t needed for the proceedings to continue.”

               “Trevelyan stubbornness! Are you sure?” Cullen urged. She nodded against his hand.

               “I was never a very good Trevelyan,” she murmured.

               “Quickly then. Josephine is doing her best to stall the meeting, and Leliana is already working on how best to explain what happened. I suppose that makes me moral support.”

               “You know you wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

               “Not for a visit from the Maker Himself.”

               “Well. I’m glad you’ve got your priorities straight, _Commander of the troops of the Holy Inquisiti- AHHHHHHHGGH_!” Her hand on Cullen’s arm tightened painfully Rhys’ magic came into contact with her for-all-intents-and-purposes-dead arm, and she quickly bit down on Cassandra’s thick glove, but it wasn’t enough. Sera passed her a thick leather armor belt to clamp between her teeth, both to muffle the screams and stop her from literally breaking her teeth on each other.

               Eventually she had to lie down, but absolutely refused to let any of the mages put her to sleep. Knowing what she did now she wanted to be as far away from the Fade as possible, especially since she didn’t have a mage’s ability to be conscious of her presence there. Through it all Cullen stayed by her side, until one of the mages brought out a large, wicked knife.

               She looked away, but as soon as she felt the blade press into her skin everything went black, and painful, and even Cullen’s presence fell away.

*

The Inquisitor Trevelyan who slammed into the Council Chambers the next morning was not the same one as the day before. She knew she would never be that person again, but now her body bore the evidence of it, and gasps of horror, stares, whispers, followed her progress through the room, to the long table where the Orlesian and Fereldan delegates sat, on either side of a long-absent Divine.

               The bickering between the delegates fell silent when her boots hit the stone before the table. In one hand she held a giant, leather-bound, travel-worn tome. The other hand was gone, and her arm with it to just above the elbow. The absence gaped, but only the innermost circle of the Inquisition knew exactly why it was gone.

               “You all know what this is.” Lifting the book, the Inquisitor looked around the room, then settled her gaze on the seated council, her gaze hard. “A writ from Divine Justinia authorizing the formation of the Inquisition. We pledged to close the Breach, find those responsible, and restore order. With or without anyone’s approval.”

               Only the Inquisitor noted Cassandra’s nod of appreciation. Those words had been echoed at the very beginning, before anyone knew what they were up against. It was only fitting they be used now, at the end.

Then the Inquisitor turned to the Fereldan Ambassador, each word scathing. “It wasn’t a formally authorized treaty that saved Fereldan’s people.”

To Orlais- “And It wasn’t careful diplomacy that ended your inane civil war.”

To everyone- “It was never about the organization. It was about people doing what was necessary. Now, however, is the time for our soldiers to sheath their swords and go home. To all who served, even when the whole world against us, thank you. It has been an honor.”

Josephine stared at her in shock as the Inquisitor let the writ drop to the floor. Then she turned on her heel and stormed from the chamber, voice ringing out behind her. 

“Effective immediately, the Inquisition is disbanded!”

She would find Solas, and she would stop him, even if it meant she had to kill him.

She would save the world.


End file.
